§ 3. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will now take steps to ensure that old-age pensioners will be given free transport from their homes to the places where they receive their pensions and back to their homes.
§ Mr. PeakeNo, Sir. If through infirmity a pensioner cannot call at the nearest post office to draw his pension, he can nominate someone to do this for him.
§ Mr. HughesDoes the Minister not realise that these pensions were fixed when conditions were different and that new conditions have been introduced by the present Government increasing the cost of fuel and transport? Therefore, there is a real case for old-age pensioners being given free transport.
§ Mr. PeakeI hesitate to draw the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attention to the fact that the Conservative Government increased pensions very substantially as from about 24th April.
§ 4. Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance how many old-age pensioners in receipt of National Assistance allowances did not have their incomes increased by 7s. 6d. for single pensioners and 11s. for couples when the basic pension was increased in April; and the saving in payments by the National Assistance Board when the new basic scales became operative.
§ Mr. PeakeThe answer to the first part of the Question is about one million. The estimated saving in Assistance over a full year, after taking account of all the changes this year in both insurance benefits and Assistance, is about £13 million.
§ Mr. DoddsWould the Minister not agree that the figure he has just given gives some idea of the meanness of the present Government, in that one million old-age pensioners, the poorest of the community, have been denied this increase? Would he not also agree that the saving of the National Assistance Board has been achieved at the expense of putting up National Insurance contributions by 1s. a week to the workers and employers?
§ Mr. PeakeNo, Sir, I cannot agree to any of that. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] I would remind the hon. Gentleman that all pensioners have derived benefit from the increases made this year, and that when the Socialist Government carried out a similar operation in 1946, some 600,000 pensioners got no increase at all.
Mr. T. WilliamsIs not the Minister aware that certain persons were net losers, because when they received the increase in their old-age pensions their National Assistance was reduced?
§ Mr. PeakeI cannot agree that anybody has been a net loser as the result of the combined operation carried out this year. If the right hon. Gentleman knows any case, perhaps he will send me particulars of it.
§ Mr. GowerCan my right hon. Friend give the number of people who received the maximum benefit of the recent increases?